NYC Transit Worker Rescues Man Who Fell On Subway Tracks

A man lost control of his motorized wheelchair and was saved Friday after he fell on the tracks at a Harlem subway station – just moments before a train approached the platform, authorities said.
Fellow straphangers and an MTA worker jumped down and scooped the 60-year-old man off the rails of the 125th St. station on the Lexington Ave. line about 4 p.m.

Carlos Betancourt, 40 – a revenue collection agent for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority – saw the disabled man on the tracks of the northbound No. 6 train and let his instincts take over.

“I didn’t think about a train coming. I just reacted,” said Betancourt, who has worked for the agency for more than six years.

“I just wanted to help.”

Three good Samaritans raced toward the injured man before Betancourt even landed on the tracks.

“My leg, my leg,” moaned the man, who was lying under the electric-powered wheelchair, Betancourt recalled.

“He said he was hurt,” Betancourt said, adding that the team of heroes got the man up on the platform. The team then recovered the man’s wheelchair.

A group of straphangers, including two NYPD officers, pulled the rescuers back over the ledge.